In the mid-17th Century, Maria de Guevara Manrique produced two separate works: Tratado y advertencias hecha por una mujer celosa Bien de su rey y corrida de parte de Espana (1663) and Desenganos de la Corte y Mujeres Valerosas (1664). At a time when Spain was experiencing political and economic decline, Guevara's work illustrated the response of a faction of court nobles, arbitristas, to Philip IV's mismanagement of the Spanish government and his complete isolation from his subjects. Guevara was a woman in a male dominated system of power. Her words shed a new light on Habsburg absolutism at the Spanish court, the organization of the Spanish government, especially the role of the privados, the King's favorites, and the role these isolationist factions played in the distancing of the monarch from his subjects and the decline of Spain. Guevara's works also illuminate the role of gender in Spanish politics and the limitations imposed by society on women, and on the efforts of outspoken women attempting to play a role in setting Spain's political agenda.

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Herm, Ariel."Privada or outcast: Maria de Guevara's Response to Spain's Economic and Political Decline at Philip IV's Court, 1663-1664". 2010. Available electronically from http://hdl.handle.net/10066/5423.